Third Degree of Illumination traverses the “membrane” of the bubble awareness in an instant of choice – a choice point. I usually don’t recognize the point because it’s so fleeting – literally an instant of awareness – a sudden Aha. In that flash of presence, the default choice is to return to the familiar – the bubble. One must remain conscious to make an alternative choice to move on to Fourth Degree of Illumination Acceptance of Accountability.

That’s where a good setup comes in handy. I can use a mantra to prepare my consciousness so that when that instant of awakening comes, I stay attentive to it long enough to “move on” to full acceptance of accountability for my life. Rather than make the default choice to return to my bubble sleep.

I can use a mantra to move me closer to choice point – maybe even ring its bell more often than when I’m deeply asleep in the bubble.

Any choice has at least two options – so I devised a mantra that includes options (“or”) and assumes I’ve already selected and committed to one – the one already in my awareness. My choice mantra is a three-parter that sounds like this:

“I am experiencing EXACTLY what I WANT to experience right now or I’d be experiencing something else.”

“I’m doing exactly what I most want to do right now or I’d be doing something else.”

“I have exactly what I want to have right now or I’d have something else.”

1-2-3, BE-DO-HAVE

I especially appreciate the second mantra: “I’m doing exactly what I most want to do right now or I’d be doing something else.” I occasionally find myself doing something I don’t like to do – like facing one of my personal demons, the plumbing. Rather than choose the default – get upset and look for someone to blame – I chant my “do” mantra to myself until my body/mind settles down. Then I get to work.

You see, whether or not I get upset, the job must still get done. I’d rather do the job with a smile than a frown. Within my bubble awareness, doing (action) is key to experience. For a quick morning “wake-up call” this second mantra really sets my day’s tone.

At bedtime, I chant all three and check my body for resistance (sensation). I then acknowledge the body part experiencing a sensation that comes to my attention by including it in my mantra like this: “Thank you, [body part experiencing sensation], for doing what I most want you to do right now.”

When one adopts this mantra as their personal truth, they tend to take accountability for their life and “magical” things start to happen. For one, when I am the responsible party, I have the power to make changes – NOT because I don’t like what I have; rather, because I LOVE what I have and want to experience something ELSE I’ll love, too.

Accepting Accountability

To make a substantial change in your life, consider accepting accountability for it – acknowledge that you are, do, and have what you currently experience because you WANT TO. How you feel about what you experience is your PAYOFF for being you having that belief.

Embrace your payoff – you love it, after all – and you’ve gone to some effort and energy to achieve it. Then look into what OTHER PAYOFF you might enjoy JUST AS MUCH and begin embracing that. Change will happen! Embrace it!

You might also enjoy achieving your current payoff in a different manner. Like the kid in the sandbox making a sand castle, you can play with your design as much as you wish until you get it “just right” – that is, you experience sufficient sensational payoff. Then, simply do it again with a new design. Creation is a fluid that responds to attention!

Remember: You’re living the dream! Everything in your life is YOU being, doing, and having YOU! Let’s acknowledge it, own it, embrace it, and accept it!

I define the concept one as the single source of everything – me, my projection of reality. I also define oneness as the condition of perceiving one as an individual separate from others. One cannot be measured by dividing self against itself, yet, oneness can as perception. Oneness doesn’t create, it only perceives an illusion of divisibility and indivisibility.

In oneness, I define everything in terms of perceived constituent parts (less than one). This compared to a standard, part compared to whole, content compared to context, and etc.

Oneness provides perception of this separation by defining boundaries or limits and assigning meaning. Like a whiteboard presentation, oneness equates to the whole whiteboard while the markings I make on the board appear to be separate yet are part of the whole whiteboard presentation. Content within context by way of definition.

About Definition

Mathematically and logically speaking, more or less than one is NOT one. Just as 2 is more than and therefore not 1, and .9 is less than and therefore not 1 either, I can use one as the reference point for comparisons. That is, one can perceive separation where there is none – by definition.

To make definitions, I measure me against not me. Oneness facilitates comprehension of me as an individual separate from not me.

One cannot be measured by dividing self against itself – one divided by itself is one. Yet, one can perceive more and less than as an illusion of separation.

Through the agency of choice, I can choose to perceive one as divisible, while remaining indivisible.

I measure what I value by attaching its importance and purpose to me. I perceive what serves me by supporting my reality and what threatens it.

My assigned values support me to experience competition for my perceived benefit or threat. That which I judge as winners or losers represent me as such. My judgements are my measure of self.

Everything and Nothing

I measure everything that I perceive affects my reality. The values I create are revealed through my projections. The concept “me” competes with the concept of “not me” to sustain this illusion of separation.

The values I assign between things allows me to perceive competition in myself. By measuring the loss and gain between values allows me to judge myself as a winner or loser. Measuring what limits me allows me to perceive what I am not.

What I am capable of as one with source is unlimited creation and unlimited experience. I already know how to create through competition and limitation.

Knowing I can create my experience in a new way, I give myself permission to explore even further than before.

In my bubble awareness world, I want MY standard to be THE standard for perceiving subjective reality. That works fine until the inevitable crash against objective reality, at which point I want a scapegoat.

To measure anything, I must define the subjective in terms of objective value. That is, it must be compatible with the physical boundaries of sensory and technological capability of the one doing the measuring. For example, an objective measurement requires counting and comparing the distances between fixed points of objects to determine their relative dimensions.

There’s a problem with objective measurements – the standards question. That is, according to what standard of measurement? For the most part, we set “objective” measurements according to an agreement. A meter is a meter ONLY among those who agree to that standard. Even when the unit of measurement is “independent” – as it is with the speed of light – it only becomes a standard when everyone using it agrees. That is NOT entirely objective – it is largely subjective.

Let’s reduce that “not entirely objective, largely subjective” standard to how I experience it. Everything I perceive with my senses appears to be “something” that seems to me to BE what it is – even when I’m not perceiving it. That’s how it SEEMS. And yet, that which SEEMS is not always that which IS.

Subjective as Objective

Simply because I WANT something to be objective – according to a solidly objective standard – doesn’t mean it IS that way. Consider WHO is DOING the perceiving – ME. You, them, even me exist ONLY as I imagine us to be. It APPEARS that I’m sensing you separate from me – standard perception. Yet, when one gets down to it, that perception of separation boils down to subjective imagination. I IMAGINE you as you, them as them, me as me.

From that standpoint, the concept of perception is merely a figment of my imagination – everything is as it is because I imagine it that way. Agreement is simply my way of imposing and defending my standard as the standard.

Values are imaginary “standards” I attach to perception that serve as a means of providing me a SENSE of objective life that can be compared. That is, I perceive I’m alive at some imagined value compared with my imagination of else-wise. And that according to some level of perceptual agreement with myself. My baseline for comparison with all else is the standard I apply to my perceptual sense of self. Subjective – FEELS objective – GOOD ENOUGH for me!

Standards beg some interesting questions:

WHAT standards am I applying to my perception?

HOW much value am I applying to that perception?

WHY that value?

WHO am I?

To succeed in life, I feel I must earn my value by being right all the time – the more right, the more value. What value? According to what standard? It seems most religions and societies have an answer to this question of standards. And yet…

What if I’m wrong about my perception of objective reality? What if there IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY? Could objective reality be a subjective illusion?

From the perceptual standpoint of bubble awareness, I process my experiences through a good/bad filter. That filter is my imagination, that makes it possible to attach value to experience. When I attach a positive value, I judge that experience as good. I use the same process for attaching negative value to what I judge as badexperience.

I judge an experience, then attach a perceived value to it. My level of defense for that value is equal to my own perceived value. That value represents the level of defense I need to protect my good or bad judgements. When I judge the value of an experience, rather than learning from it, I miss the learning.

These good and bad values become perceptual patterns. Like stringing beads on lines of bias, I link compatible values – good experiences with other good experiences and bad experiences with other bad experiences.

All these links of strings of beads create patterns of bias. When sufficient beads (judgements) are amassed as my truth, bias defends that truth. That bias becomes my story – my reality.

Perceptual Misunderstandings

My thoughts and feelings are the ingredients necessary to combine my truth into judgements of good and bad. These play off each other in a dance of perceptual misunderstandings: if this > then that. These patterns of false equations are really about my judgements of my experience, rather than the experiences themselves.

When I am aware of my perceptual misunderstandings of good and bad, I consciously affect the outcome of my experiences simply by being present in them.

I can use mindfulness to awaken into acceptance of full accountability for everything. Bringing together positive and negative poles into none.

What if you were to change your previous cause and effect relationships to experience what happens next in the direction of trust? Interested in exploring this trust wild card?

This level of trust requires a merging of all your need to prove rightness about reality – to consider instead embracing an alternative reality that supports humility, openness, and authenticity. There’s nothing to lose because you never had anything to gain from being right. All you really have is your perceptions to fear – ghosts.

What about Ego?

I acknowledge I have an ego. That’s the aspect of mind that tells me what to do and how to do it. Behind every ego order, there’s an army of defenses armed and ready to give me a sense of authority. The seat of rightness can get pretty demanding when I abdicate my true self-authority.

Many of my life’s intentions have been left to ego, whose job it is to protect me from harm. So far, I think it’s done a pretty good job – at the expense of losing connection with others, not to mention losing touch with my genuine Self.

Considering the infrequency of my Self-awareness that’s capable of challenging ego, I must admit it may well be that I’ve simply believed the propaganda.

To explore beyond ego, one would have to release defenses of any kind. When you don’t have to be right, you won’t set yourself up to be wrong either.

Playing the Trust Wild Card

When you find that fear has left you, your choices increase exponentially and your opportunities for understanding match those choices.

Playing the trust wild card simply comes down to acceptance of Self as authority over ego, which is used to being in charge, a position it’s not keen to relinquish. Self-awareness may take Self-trust in the face of ego-imagined fears. With practice and patience, I can tame the wild beast.